“The most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But that pronouncement about obesity’s primacy in the hierarchy of national health problems is not new. Rather, it’s the opening line to a remarkable article published 60 years ago in LIFE magazine. This photographs made by Martha Holmes to illustrate that March 1954 article, titled “The Plague of Overweight.” Photo: Dorothy Bradley (left), photographed for LIFE magazine article on obesity, 1949. (Photo by Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures)

A young Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rifle in Haresta neighbourhood of Damascus January 16, 2013. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A recruitment drive during the First World War at Trafalgar Square, London. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

People observe a protest against a new citizenship law from a bus, in New Delhi, India, January 3, 2020. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

Torchbearers Charles Antoine Kouakou, Fabien Lamirault, Elodie Lorandi, Nantenin Keita and Alexis Hanquinquant gesture after lighting the Cauldron to conclude the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games at Place de la Concorde on August 28, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

A girl plays at the West Side Hallo Fest, a Halloween festival in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, October 27, 2023. Tens of thousands streamed last weekend to Bucharest's Angels' Island peninsula for what was the biggest Halloween festival in the Eastern European nation since the fall of Communism. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Two animatronic velociraptors are on display during a technical rehearsal of “Walking with Dinosaurs The Live Experience” at the Indoor Stadium in Singapore, 29 August 2019. “Walking with Dinosaurs The Live Experience” is based on the BBC series of the same name and will run from 29 August to 08 September. (Photo by Wallace Woon/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Cara Delevingne poses onstage for Savage X Fenty Show Presented By Amazon Prime Video – Show Sneak Peak at Barclays Center on September 10, 2019 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Savage X Fenty Show Presented by Amazon Prime Video)